Digital video recorder using circular file management and method of operation

Abstract

There is disclosed a digital video recorder that uses a circular file management system to efficiently manage time-shifted viewing a live video broadcast television program. There is provided for use in the digital video recorder, an apparatus for performing time-shifted viewing of an incoming television program being received by the digital video recorder. The apparatus comprises a controller capable of creating a data file having a defined maximum size on a storage disk of the digital video recorder and capable of causing video data associated with the incoming television program to be stored sequentially in the data file from a first location to an Nth location. The controller, in response to a determination that the video data has been stored in the Nth location, causes a next received video data to be stored in the first location.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]The present invention is related to those disclosed in the following U.S. patent applications:[0002]1. Ser. No. 09 / 943,837, filed concurrently herewith, entitled “SYSTEM FOR MULTIPLEXING VIDEO DATA STREAMS IN A DIGITAL VIDEO RECORDER AND METHOD OF OPERATING THE SAME;”[0003]2. Ser. No. 09 / 943,815, filed concurrently herewith, entitled “APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR INDEXING MPEG VIDEO DATA TO PERFORM SPECIAL MODE PLAYBACK IN A DIGITAL VIDEO RECORDER”;[0004]3. Ser. No. 09 / 944,729, filed concurrently herewith, entitled “SYSTEM FOR DETECTING START CODES IN MPEG VIDEO STREAMS AND METHOD OF OPERATING THE SAME;”[0005]4. Ser. No. 09 / 943,793, filed concurrently herewith, entitled “APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR SYNCHRONIZING VIDEO AND AUDIO MPEG STREAMS IN A VIDEO PLAYBACK DEVICE.”[0006]The above applications are commonly assigned to the assignee of the present invention. The disclosures of these related patent applications are hereby incorporated by referen...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0013]To address the above-discussed deficiencies of the prior art, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide a digital video recorder that uses a circular file management system to efficiently manage time-shifted viewing of a live video broadcast television program. There is provided, for use in a digital video recorder, an apparatus for performing time-shifted viewing of an incoming television program being received by the digital video recorder. According to an advantageous embodiment of the present invention, the apparatus comprises a controller capable of creating a data file having a defined maximum size on a storage disk of the digital video recorder and capable of causing video data associated with the incoming television program to be stored sequentially in the data file from a first location to an Nth location. The controller, in response to a determination that the video data has been stored in the Nth location, causes a next received video data to be stored in the first location.

[0014]According to one embodiment of the present invention, the controller uses a write pointer to cause the video data to be stored sequentially in the data file from the first location to the Nth location.

[0015]According to another embodiment of the present invention, the controller updates the write pointer each time the video data is stored to a location in the data file to thereby cause the video data to be stored sequentially in the data file from the first location to the Nth location.

Problems solved by technology

Unfortunately, conventional file management techniques are inefficient when it comes to time-shifted viewing.

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